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“So, let me get this straight and no, don’t make the joke you’re about to make, Checo, I can see in your eyes that you’re thinking about it.”
Sergio rolled his eyes with a small smile on his face and made Lance a sign to continue with his hand. The Canadian sighed.
“Max and you broke up last year over whatever happened in Brazil between you two, you went no contact with him for months, the man sent you to therapy on how bad it was affecting your performance and mental health, and you’re telling me now you’re talking to him again? One race together and you’re talking again?” Lance pointed at him with his fork.
Sergio took a sip of his wine. “You’re exaggerating, I didn’t go to therapy because of him.”
“You woke me up one time to cry on how your pillow still smelled like him.” Lance pointed out, again.
“That was one time. Also, we’re talking again because we’re teammates, nothing else. Can’t I have a professional relationship with my teammate?” Sergio twirled his pasta and ate it.
“Not when said teammate is sending you pictures of his cats saying they miss you.”
Sergio kept eating in silence, knowing it was no use fighting with Lance and his phone ringed again. He looked down and another text from Max appeared in his locked screen, a picture of their helmets together looking up to him. He refused to change it for some reason.
Lance and him were sitting in an expensive restaurant in Bahrein, Monday after race day and both of their teams on their ways to the next track. Sergio invited his friend to a nice dinner because, if he was being honest, he missed him a lot and they didn’t have time to meet up during winter break. Sergio’s schedule was filled up with marketing, sponsor and, especially, team PR meetings after the tension Max and him had at the Honda Thanks Day. If by tension we understand that it was him tiptoeing around Max because he wanted neutrality and Max acting like nothing ever happened grabbing his waist and hands in front of their mechanics.
After that, Sergio felt the need to tell his therapist what was going on and all she recommended was a bit of distance between them before the season started again and that’s exactly what he did.
So now, the only moment he left his phone alone in the table while he went to the restroom for less than 5 minutes, Lance saw the M with a lion and heart emoji notification and he was getting a worse scolding than the one he got from his sister when he told her.
“It’s not what you’re thinking, we’re just friends.” Sergio tried to justify, muting his phone. Max was just as annoying as he was persistant.
“The same old lie?” Lance laughed. “You already used this one on me, remember Abu Dhabi 2021? “Oh, it’s just a one time thing, Lance! We’re teammates, Lance! I would never fall in love with a teammate, Lance!”” He made air quotes and Sergio turned red in the face. He’s never inviting him out again. “Next thing I know, your relationship is on blast on national TV because your ex put his championship points over your feelings in South America.”
“I know, I know…” Sergio murmured, rolling his eyes. “It won’t happen again, I promise. I’m healed now, but I need to make amends with him or this season is going to be hell, and I already got enough pressure over my head, okay?”
“If you say so,” Lance took a sip of his wine and continued eating his pasta. He took a napkin and cleaned his mouth. “Just promise me that if anything gets bad again, you’ll come to me or Fernando no matter what, you know we’ll back you up. We can defend you in the media too, even if Fernando refuses to.”
Sergio laughed and shook his head, happy to be friends with such great people like Lance, Fernando and Carlos. “C’mon, you know I will, the same goes to you. How is your girlfriend doing, by the way?”
Lance gave him a big smile and started rambling about his new girlfriend that he was sure he has seen in the paddock one or two times, but Lance was being very secretive about the whole thing, so he didn’t push for any personal information about her.
Sergio just smiled back and kept drinking his wine, the night slipping away as their conversation changed from one topic to another. Sergio could feel the vibrations in his phone of several texts from Max, but didn’t pay attention as he wanted to treasure his time with Lance.
Max could wait another day.
“¿Reconectar? ¿Reconectar?” Carlos almost screamed while jogging beside him. “Are you hearing this, Hugh? This man wants to reconnect with…I won’t even name him. I’m still mad.”
Hugh laughed a little, his jogging slowing down a bit to breathe. “I told him he’s crazy. All the mechanics are already betting on how long it takes till they get back together again.”
“You two have no faith in me.” Sergio kept jogging between them, the asphalt hot under his shoes. “He said he wanted to have dinner with me after the race on Sunday, it’s not like we’re getting married or anything. My therapist said that it was good for us, so any tension left after Brazil is cleared up and we both go our own ways.”
Sergio, Carlos, Jo, and Hugh were all jogging around the Baku circuit before FP1, as per usual. Carlos decided to join them this time after Sergio texted him about it, it was an opportunity to catch up since both of them were too caught up in their seasons and now they were under the Azerbaijan sun, sweaty and tired before practice.
“His own way is the route back to your bed. Please, Chequito de mi corazón, we all know how your horny brain works.” Carlos argued and Hugh nodded, both laughing. Sergio wanted the earth to swallow him. Why did he think it was a good idea to tell Carlos, of all people, about Max inviting him out again?
Sergio couldn’t lie and say Max in Bahrein didn’t spark some old feelings in him. His brain was mush after the race because of the constant Ferrari car analysis he did behind Charles, and then Max hugged him when they went to their team celebration and it was like Sergio could breathe again. He had missed his hugs so much that it felt like his body was on fire from that simple contact. Max looked just, oh so hot, sweaty and happy after the win, his eyes sparkly, reminding Sergio why he fell in love with him in the first place.
Then, Max’s constant texting returned.
The texting had stopped after Max realized that Sergio wouldn’t answer anything coming from him during winter break after Brazil, but came back full force when he noticed that Sergio wouldn’t fight the contact between them when they shared a podium.
Sergio wasn’t bothered by it.
He definitely needed a new therapist, though.
“My sheets have a lock on, thank you very much.” Sergio replied, sipping water from his bottle when they finished several laps around the circuit. Carlos laughed again and gave him a few pats on the back.
“If you say so, cabrón.” Carlos was about to say something else, but Charles waved his hand at the distance, signaling him to come back to the garage. “Duty calls, gentlemen, pleasure to jog with you, but Vasseur will hang me if I’m late again. Adiós!”
While Carlos walked back to his garage, Sergio kept talking with Jo and Hugh about his schedule for the rest of the day, then he heard as Carlos screamed from a distance, almost skipping with each of his words. “Es una muy mala idea, pero si cometes esa mala idea, quiero todos los detalles para la próxima carrera, eh!”
Checo blushed furiously and stuck his middle finger up to Carlos as Jo and Hugh laughed at the scene. He was so exhausted that, at this point, he wouldn’t even try to fight Jo if he tried to put him in some ice cold water.
“You know,” Jo started, as the three of them walked back to Red Bull’s garage. “There’s something I agree with Carlos and that is that it’s a very bad idea to try and make it right with Max, we know how that went after Spain last year when you wanted some space from him and all he did was nod and beg you for another chance. How can you be sure this isn’t the same case?”
“It’s not, I swear.” Sergio sighed and closed his eyes. He breathed hard. He was tired of defending this. “And if it is, I won’t accept it. Simple as that.”
Jo and Hugh looked at each other for some seconds and shrugged. Sergio considered himself a lost cause, so he continued walking without saying a word.
Sergio’s phone ringed, and he slowed down his steps to look at it, letting Jo and Hugh walk away as he opened his texts.
Max: Do you want me to wait for you and take you back to the hotel?
Sergio: Yes, please.
As Sergio said before, he was a lost cause.
“You’re not drinking more tequila.” Fernando took his sixth shot of the night away from his hands and Sergio frowned.
“Why are you acting like my mother?” Sergio tried to grab it again and failed. Fernando got up from the bar and gave the shot to Lance, who happily took it. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t get fucked up tonight? I deserve it.”
“One? I’ll give you three.” Fernando put three fingers up from his hand and Sergio huffed, annoyed by his friend. “One, I may as well be your mother because I basically raised you in this sport.” Sergio was about to say something, but the Spanish man didn’t even let him start. “Do not argue with me. Two, I won’t let you have another Monaco scandal, if Alice wakes up in the middle of the night for another PR emergency, you will send her into early retirement and you don’t have another contract extension announcement yet to use as damage control. Three and last, it was a bad Monaco race, not a bad season, yes, your teammate lapped you and you got no points, so what? There’s good races and bad races, that has never stopped you from trying.”
Sergio looked at him once, the fire inside him dying by the moment and he put his arms on the bar, his head down. “So, what am I supposed to do? I’m here celebrating your second place and I can’t even be happy because Max is celebrating a perfect race, while I got another scream match from Helmut.”
“I say that,” Lance got up from his stool and downed the tequila shot in his hand. He smiled and ruffled Sergio’s hair. “You go back home and sleep the madness off, work in the sim to get better for the next race and start praying those updates don’t fuck you up like last year.”
“Lo que dijo el niño,” Fernando agreed and patted Sergio’s back to get him to stand up too. “Let’s go get you an Uber, because I won’t let you drive that old ass Ferrari to your apartment in this state.”
“It’s a classic!” Sergio screamed, walking between the sea of people on the dance floor. He midly smiled, his blue button up shirt smelling of tequila and lime juice since that’s all he’s been drinking since he arrived to the party.
After his awful Monaco race, all he wanted to do was mope around and cry his eyes out near the Monte Carlo port because he couldn’t stand the guilt of failing his side of the garage like that. Even a DNF was better than a 16th position, or that was what Marko told him in their team briefing. Whatever it was, this was probably his worst weekend of the season and he couldn’t stand seeing Max on the other side of spectrum.
Lance decided it was a good idea to invite him to the Aston Martin party after the race and here he was, a Red Bull driver getting shitfaced with his old team. At least, the tequila was nicer than he expected and it was comforting to see many familiar faces around him. He felt a bit more at peace.
Fernando dragged him around with one arm around his shoulders and Sergio let him, his feet obeying what Fernando told him to do. That was, until his phone ringed in the front pocket of his shirt, the tone of an incoming call vibrating in his chest.
Sergio stopped in his tracks and looked at the bright screen, trying to read the caller.
What the hell? Sergio, thought.
He opened his eyes wide, and screamed to Fernando. “I’m going to the restroom, wait for me outside!”
Fernando arched an eyebrow, doubtful. “No te vayas a escapar por más tequila, eh cabrón?”
“Seré pendejo, pero no tanto!” Sergio smiled and ran to the nearest restroom in the back of the club.
Once he was there, he locked himself in one of the stalls, his hands a bit shaken and answered.
“What do you want, Verstappen?”
“Harsh, is that how you treat all your exes?”
“Only the ones that lap me in a race.”
“How is that my fault?”
“It isn’t, I just answered your question. Again, what do you want?”
“It’s a bit loud on your end, are you in a party?”
“Stop evading my question.”
“So you are in a party, are you in Aston’s?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“You’re the love of my life, of course it’s my business.”
“Charming, tell that to your next boyfriend.”
Sergio was about to hang up, then Max screamed. “Wait!”
“So? Are you going to tell me what do you want?”
“I miss you.”
“Ha! Tell me another joke.”
“I’m serious, Checo. I miss you so fucking much it hurts.”
“You should talk that with your therapist.”
“I did, and she knows I love you.”
“Did you tell her what you did to me or did you skip that part in our story?”
“Checo…”
“I’m sorry, it’s just-“ Sergio paused and sighed. Why was he feeling so emotional about this? Surely, it was the alcohol in his system. “It’s unfair.”
“What’s unfair?”
“That you get to say you love me so freely and I get the burden of being a second priority to you.”
“You were never second priority and never will be.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I love you.” Sergio breath hitched as he heard Max pause and say the next words carefully. “And I miss you, can you come home, please?”
“Aren’t you at the Red Bull party?”
“Came home early because I wanted to call you. Please, come. Jimmy and Sassy miss you.”
“No.” Sergio said clearly and he hang up. Fuck, his head was pounding at him.
His phone ringed the second he hung up, a text from Max with a pic of him with his cats and an address Sergio didn’t recognize at all, but surely was from Max’s new apartment.
Fuck it, then Sergio thought as he took a split second decision.
Before Fernando took a drastic decision and came looking for him because he was taking too much time inside like the mother he was, Sergio was already walking out of the club, texting him about going to Carlos’s apartment to sleep and promising him he wouldn’t drive and would take an Uber, feeling like a teen escaping from his overbearing parent.
A little lie never hurt nobody.
“Verstappen.”
“Pérez.”
Sergio was standing in front of Max’s door in the second floor of his new apartment building. It was bigger than the one they shared, to say the least. All white and minimalist designs, just like Max liked it. A pang of guilt came over him as Max looked at him head to toe, his disheveled hair, open button up shirt and flushed cheeks a clear giveaway of his state and what place he came from.
However, Max?
Max looked heavenly.
His hair was fresh out of the shower, fluffed and a bit dry, just like Sergio liked on him. White t-shirt and black boxers, his normal weekend outfit. His eyes a bright sparkle as if he couldn’t believe Sergio actually came. The new routine Brad has put him into evident more than ever in his arms and legs. Sergio was almost salivating just looking at him.
This is such a bad idea, Sergio thought.
“Can I come in?” Sergio gulped and asked after a few seconds of staring at each other.
Max, without second thought, grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him inside, door closing behind him and before Sergio could process it, Max’s lips were on his and Sergio returned the kiss enthusiastically.
All could Sergio do is smile and moan between kisses, his brain shut down over Max’s hands feeling so good over his body that all he wanted was more. More kisses. More hands. More Max. More everything.
As Max moved them slowly to his bed, Sergio stopped in front of it and grabbed Max’s face, Max’s eyes roaming his face by the sudden action. “This is a very bad idea, Max.”
Max smiled and slowly backed him in bed, his body caging Sergio’s underneath him, his right hand over his jeans taking another moan out of Sergio.
“If this is a bad idea to you, I hope you keep having them.”
Sergio grabbed his face and kissed him again.